Addendums to Discarded Canon
by cleon24769
Summary: Hate the fact that there aren't many fan fics out there specifically covering the 400 Days characters? So am I! Here's a trio of unrelated short stories I've made starring different groupings of Becca, Bonnie, Russell, Shel, Vince, and Wyatt; featuring appearances by Eddie and Lilly. Rated T for strong language, violence, and some adult humor.
1. Becca, Vince (Family)

**Disclaimer**: _The Walking Dead Game: Season 1_, _The Walking Dead Game: Season 2__,_ _400 Days_, and all their characters are owned by Telltale Games. _The Walking Dead_ franchise itself is owned and operated by Image Comics, AMC, Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, Charlie Adlard, and Frank Darabont. FanFiction user "cleon24769" is simply a fan with an interesting hobby.

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**-****AU 1: Whomever Submits Their Descending**

"Keep running! Just keep running, Becca. Don't look back!"

"Stop worrying about us," she shouted back. "You just worry about not falling behind!"

Too many were in utter hysterics. Shrieks and bursts of gunfire came from each and every direction. The dilapidated town was in pandemonium; alive now with the dead. Countless choirs of moans and snarls were carried upon the winds, so determining just how many had surrounded their group was impossible to discern. Walkers seemed to be stumbling out of every window and alley they fled past. In-between the batches of ravenous corpses was the occasional human who ran full sprint for the large group of survivor's ordered rallying point.

_ "Head towards that weeping willow!" _That had been Vince's order just a few minutes before people started getting separated by, or lost within, the surprise herd. The order had been repeated amongst other members in their group to ensure that everybody heard it. Even now, in the sad reality of every man, woman, and child for themselves, variations of the order echoed throughout the town. Willow this, and willow that. The tree in question was, thanks to the moonlight, a clear sight to see near the top of that hill they'd all scaled into town the afternoon before.

Suddenly, a woman's cries of panic came from behind them. "Cynthia, no!" somebody else screamed.

Josh gasped. "Becca, they got that lady!"

That caused Becca to slow down to a halt. She first looked down at Josh, the little boy whose hand she was holding, and then to the fresh gunshot wound on her shoulder she was applying pressure against with her other hand. Afterwards, she turned to see that a walker had, indeed, pinned the terrified one-legged woman to the ground.

One of Cynthia's hands held her attacker's snapping jaws at bay, while the other reached futilely for her plastic crutch, as if it were some magical grail that was going to solve all the problems in the world. More walkers began descending upon her, and her panicked cries swelled into howls of absolute terror.

"Dad!"

Two armed men had dashed out from around the corner of a building at that very intersection. One was Josh's father, and the other was Vince. Immediately, Josh's father emptied what was left in his shotgun at the gang of walkers still descending upon Cynthia, but there were too many of them now shielding each other's skulls. Vince and his handgun didn't do enough damage, either. No less than ten walkers had been dropped, but at that point, all the two had accomplished was delaying the inevitable.

Josh's father cursed. "I'm out! Vince, what about you?"

"Reloading my last clip," Vince said. He pocketed his emptied magazine — too precious to blatantly discard — and loaded his pistol with his only other. Deciding to save the bullets in case of a personal emergency, he holstered it at its place on his pant waist. "Let's go!" He charged towards Cynthia with his large hunting knife drawn, quickly killing off several walkers on the way with a no-nonsense thrust through the softness at the underside of the jaw. His companion followed close after, using his shotgun as a club. Yet, valiant as their efforts were, it soon proved to be too late.

The damage had been done. No medical training in the world was going to amputate an infected abdomen with any degree of optimism. One walker after the other intensified the feeding frenzy, tearing at more areas of Cynthia's body with both tooth and claw. But even as blood began oozing out of her shuddering mouth and nostrils, Josh's father continued his slow advance through the sea of walkers to save her; indomitable in his mission.

"No, don't," Cynthia gurgled at him, fighting through the agony of being eaten alive just to sound comprehensible. "This was . . . my fault! Just get out of —!" Those were her last words. Rotted hands tearing into the sides of her neck made sure of that.

Becca seethed at the loss of one of their own. Though the scene felt like it had taken forever, less than fifteen seconds had passed. The walkers around them had gotten much closer, but their original path of escape remained clear. She nearly made a break for it with Josh, but concern for Vince held her in place. She had to make sure he had a way to make it out alive, too.

Vince was staring right at her, a contradictory mix of determination and worry on his face. "Becca, I'm coming!" Eight shots swiftly left his pistol before he holstered it, empty. Switching to his combat knife, he slowly began to carve a path towards his ward.

Becca was terrified. "Are you fucking insane?" she screamed. "You're going to get yourself killed! Go around, you moron! We'll meet you at the willow!" She saw him begin to slow down his fruitless advance through the ever-thickening horde between them, but still, he continued. To that, Becca added, "Don't worry, Vince! Trust me! I'll be fine, and I'll look after Josh!"

Vince hesitated, but nodded and stopped. He trusted her. Becca couldn't help but smile the slightest smile at that. Josh's father, however, was still desperate to get to his own child. "I'm coming, Josh!" he cried. "Just hang on, little buddy. I'll be there in a minute!"

"Dad, stop it! They'll hurt you! I'll go there!"

It took all of Becca and Vince's strength to pull the son and father away to safety.

Another few minutes of fleeing passed before the outskirts of the tiny town lay ahead. The willow was in full view, as well, along with trickles of their group members already heading towards it. Thankfully, that whole area looked mostly clear of walkers. The herd must have entered the town from the opposite side. Looks like Vince had made the right call.

Becca sighed in relief once catching up with some others. She let go of Josh and hunched over to catch her breath. Inside, she was cursing violently at their predicament. The whole night leading up to this ordeal had been so pleasant. Quiet, slow, and abundant in their scavenging of supplies. Just a few hours before, they'd all turned in for the night with high hopes. A thousand walkers appearing out of nowhere had been the last possibility to cross their minds. But it happened.

How something the size of a walker herd could've had so easily stumbled upon their group in the peace of an evening slumber was just one of those phenomena in life which Becca had long since stopped trying to figure out. Shit happens, and you deal with it. That was the unanimous philosophy to adhere by post-apocalypse.

"You bit?"

Becca turned to see her oldest living friend standing there. To that, she scoffed. Typical, Vince-like greeting. "No, of course not. When we all started to get split up back there, Rudy shot me in the fucking shoulder. By accident," she quickly added.

Vince went stiff before a confused scowl crossed his face. "Again?"

"Yeah!" she replied. Earlier that month, a stray bullet from the nine-year-old Rudy's wayward aiming had grazed the side of Becca's left thigh. The skin had grown back since then, but it still stung dully from time to time. Becca and Vince shared a weak laugh at that, but all of the sudden, Becca nearly dropped to one knee, causing Vince to rush to her side. Now that the adrenaline was leaving her, the pain was catching up, and fast.

"We got to get that out," Vince said. He placed a reassuring hand on her good shoulder. "Infection from a bullet can kill all the same as an infection from a bite. Come on."

Becca grunted in pain as he helped her back up to her feet. She leaned into his support, hissing at the convulsions of the wound. "I think it just went through," she said. "Still fucking smarts, though. And yes, I know Rudy _just_ has a twenty-two caliber, but still."

"I didn't say anything. Just because I once took a slug from a three-oh-eight sniper rifle in the gut, and survived, doesn't mean I'm looking to brag."

Becca tried to scoff at that, but failed. "Right. Well, if you could help me patch this fucker up, I'd greatly appreciate it."

"Don't worry, Bec. We'll get you to Neil." Vince looked around for the man in question, but what caught his full attention at first was the sight of Josh and his father reunited. Neil was further up the road, which arced over the hill. The older man was their resident medic with over twelve years of experience as a nurse practitioner — basically nine-tenths of a doctor, for all intents and purposes — but he was busy preparing for the amputation of one of their group member's hands. "Well, after he's done with that," Vince then said. Together, they started moving towards the rest of their group. "So . . . _Rudy,_ of all people, shot you, huh?"

Becca managed a weak laugh through gritted teeth. "Right? The first time he hits something in weeks with that stupid pea-shooter of his, and it's my fucking shoulder."

Beside them were Josh and his father. "We were running alongside you in the street next to yours," said Josh's father, soothing the weeping child as they walked. "You were always going to be safe, son. I'd never let anything happen to you." He continued comforting him as the others in the group gathered together.

"Looks like almost everybody made it," someone said.

"But who's still missing?"

"Wait, where the fuck is Paul?" demanded another. She briefly studied the faces around her, but her question went unanswered. She began to call out for him, but stopped when a voice spoke up from the darkness.

"I'm here!" A man ran up towards them from the direction of the town. "Don't worry, sis. I'm here." They embraced in relief as the rest studied the lost town they'd left behind.

All this familial sentimentality put a frown of Becca's face. It was times like this when she most missed her older sister, Shel, and even her parents, whose faces she no longer remembered. Becca winced slightly at the feel of a brief and gentle squeeze around her shoulder from the arm that had already been there. She looked up to see a small, sad smile on Vince's face. He didn't need to say anything. Becca could feel that he already knew what was going through her mind. They didn't trade anything other than a mutual sense of kindred understanding.

Neil patched up Becca's gunshot wound while the others either inspected each other for bites, or slew the occasional walker who ventured too close. In the meantime, two more stragglers from their group managed to arrive. Neil then patted Becca on the shoulder when he was done. Fortunately, the bullet had already exited her body, and a simple sterilization and bandaging were all that was required.

The group took a moment to count heads. Most everybody had made it. Those who were still missing were confirmed dead via eyewitness accounts. With that, Vince gave the order to move up the road back towards the direction which they'd came the previous afternoon. Upon hitting the first fork, they turned onto a road they'd previously ignored, going nowhere in particular. All they were looking for was a decent place to rest their heads. Worrying about where it would go from there would have to wait until dawn.

Two hours went by with the group trudging nonstop. The only time they'd slow in the slightest was whenever the odd walker was encountered en route, but each were taken down quietly by designated guards along the sides of their formation to ensure the group would keep moving. Once they were sure they'd gone far enough for the herd to have lost their scent, Vince gave the order to settle down on the shore of a great lake, which they'd discovered from indications of billboards.

The setup was actually more than they could ask for. It was far from the road, with nothing but dirt for a quarter mile between the pavement and the water. No worries about walkers popping out of tall grass there. A wooden commercial fishing dock was their spot, and it stood about eight feet from the water. They could dangle their legs off the side, if they wanted to, and not have to fret about being pulled under. The large group quickly set about in making camp with what equipment they'd been able to bring with them in such a hurry out of town. Shortly, they all prepared to sleep in for what was left of the night, and hopefully for the rest of the day as well.

The moon was still there, barely, when Becca stirred. Raising her head a bit, she saw everybody around her sleeping peacefully, and the three campfires they had were still roaring away. She took note of their group's two sentries on duty, relieved that they were both wide awake and attentive. Nobody wanted a repeat of what just happened back in town. Becca then lay her head back down upon the jacket she was using as a pillow. The wound in her shoulder was a tiny bit tolerable now, provided she didn't strain it much. Maybe that was what had woken her up: a jolt in her sleep that had sent a shockwave straight to her brain. Regardless, she couldn't surrender herself back into slumber. Her mind wandered, instead. It was random, at first, but once the thought from earlier, when her group members were reunited with family, crossed her mind, that topic stuck to her head for the next few minutes straight.

It had been years since she'd lost her older and only sibling to that cannibalistic madwoman's bullets. Or, it felt like years, at least. Truth be told, Becca didn't even know how old she was anymore. She wasn't terribly much taller than she remembered being, but then again, that could just simply be attributed to a none-too balanced, and inarguably desperate, diet brought on by the necessity of constant scavenging. Ever since the walkers invaded the world and razed it to the ground, always eating healthy to grow up big and strong wasn't so easy an option anymore. But that was beside the point. No matter how many months had gone by since it happened, Becca missed her late sister beyond all explanation.

Shelley Meyers had always been her protector, especially whenever things got rough. In the end, she'd committed the ultimate sacrifice: taking the last five shots from a shaky Kalashnikov all across her chest which were meant for Becca's forehead. Instant death. They never even got the chance to share a proper goodbye. After staring into her sister's lifeless eyes, and then caving that already dying cannibal's face in with Shel's tire iron, Becca had never been the same.

In some ways, she had changed for the better. Her eyes had since opened to the fact that what she had always taken for granted was really so frighteningly easy to lose. As far as Becca could tell of herself, she wasn't as mean-spirited as before. Maybe a bit of snark slipped out of her mouth every now and again, but she could usually catch herself beginning to cross a given line, and then simply stop before going too far. People in their group lately had a tendency to come and go — in more ways than one — but if how much a lot of them seemed to value her opinion and trust in her skills, she wasn't being dismissed and ignored as some bratty little kid anymore. She had her friends to thank for that.

Wyatt, Russell, Bonnie, and even Sarah to an extent. They'd all had a hand in cultivating the young woman who Becca had grown into. Shel, of course, deserved an especially commendable mention just because that's exactly what she'd been trying to hammer into her since their parents passed. Out of all non-blood relations, however, the one who'd always been there for Becca since their group's numbers began dwindling — and who had taught her just about everything she now knew about survival, caution, compassion, and firearms — was Vince.

Her relationship with Vince was a special case. After Shel's murder, Vince had taken Becca as his responsibility; his ward, and — for all accounts and purposes — his adopted little sister, or even daughter. Though she somewhat hated to admit it, Becca probably wouldn't have made it past those first few weeks were it not for him. Vince was tough on her much more often than not, sure. And there were more than a handful of frightening times when he almost looked like he just want to give up dealing with her attitude, and just abandon her altogether. Yet, there were just as many moments when he'd listen to her complaints with a patient and thoughtful ear, or compliment her learning curve to make her feel good about herself, or even just say or do something that would have her burst out laughing. Out of the whole group post-Shel, Vince was the one who cared for her, and about her. And she returned that sentiment, along with no small amount of loyalty.

Thinking of Vince struck her with a compulsion to confirm his safety. Becca looked next to her and found his sleeping bag empty. How had she not noticed all that time? Had he been kidnapped, or killed? She shot up, groaning at the strain in her shoulder, and examined the surrounding area. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, so he should have been fine, nonetheless. But then she noticed that, in addition to the two people on watch, there was a third sitting at the edge of the dock, staring out into the lake.

Vince's train of though was broken when he felt a light pat on his shoulder. He nodded in greeting as Becca sat down beside him.

"So, you were serious about taking a watch," she said. "Didn't expect you'd do it so soon."

"I thought we could use a third set of eyes watching the lake."

"I've never seen them swim. Or float."

"Neither have I, but, then again, I never saw that army of undead coming, either."

Becca gave a shrug with her good shoulder. "So, what's up? You look like you were lost in your own, little world for a second."

"Nothing, really," he said. "What are you doing here, Bec? You don't have a watch tonight. You should head back to bed." Maybe that had come out a little harsher than he'd intended.

"Well, shit," she drawled. It had. Becca then rested her head and arms upon the wooden railing. "Can't a girl just catch up with an old buddy of hers without arousing suspicion, or whatever? Fuck, I know it's a quiet night by firelight next to a lake reflecting the moon, and shit, but I'm not here to hit on you, if that's what you were thinking. Not this time, at least," she quickly added as a joke.

"Be still, my beating heart," he spat, voice rife with sarcasm. "In any case, I'm sorry. I'm just . . . I don't know. I'm just sorry for being a grouch just now. You didn't deserve it."

"That does bring to mind a concern of mine. I'm getting worried about you. Why have you always been volunteering for a watch every night? We've got enough people now to, like, rotate shifts every _other_ night."

"Well, after what happened in that town back there . . ." He shook his head once he caught onto the implication of his words. "It'll just make me feel better."

"The others said it was Cynthia's watch when the herd wandered into town." Becca shook her own head in disappointment. "Sounds like she fell asleep on duty again. To think, this never would've happened if —"

"Nah," he interrupted her. "No use dwelling on that thought anymore. She's gone now, but most of the rest of us made it out safely."

"I guess." Becca then examined him carefully, and determined that all that sleep he'd been denying himself out of duty in the past few days was too telltale to ignore. She nudged his arm with her elbow to get his undivided attention. When she had it, she motioned her head towards the sleeping bags. "Go on. You need sleep. I'll take your watch tonight."

Vince smirked defiantly. "Not going to happen." Well, at least his tone was jovial.

They shared an amiable silence after that which lasted for many minutes, but neither of them were counting. With her chin resting above her hands upon the railing, Becca noticed that, from the slight light of coming dawn, she could see the reflection of herself and Vince in the water below. She could tell, from his expression within, that he'd lost himself in thought again.

"Vince, come on. I know you well enough to tell when something's eating at you inside." When she heard him sigh lightly at that, but not respond, her frowned deepened. "It's coming back to you again, isn't it?"

Vince's head lowered. "Yeah," he mumbled.

Becca nodded in understanding. As of late, Vince was being troubled by the ghosts of the past. He was smart enough to accept that most of the people they'd lost wasn't his fault, but, according to what he'd confided to her, that still didn't stop him from questioning whether or not he could've done something more to have prevented all that. Neither of them knew for sure what had brought this on so suddenly after so long without a problem, but it got Becca worried for her last true friend left in the world. Shel wasn't the only one gone.

Wyatt was actually the first. He had disappeared during an unrelated bandit attack that happened barely a month after they'd all narrowly escaped from that mega-herd which had besieged Howe's Hardware. Wyatt was shot at least twice and eventually got separated from the group. The group was being chased by so many pissed off bandits that it took too much time to kill or drive them all off during the group's tactical retreat. So long, in fact, that by the time they pulled themselves together to go back and search for Wyatt, they found that he had already succumbed to his wounds and was wandering the woods as a walker. They took him down quickly and gave him a proper burial. A few words were said in his memory, and earnest apologies were offered to their regret that they had allowed Wyatt to die alone, and probably scared. The mere thought of a dying Wyatt whimpering quietly in the mud and rain all by himself as he pleaded for God to give him a break and see his friends running to his rescue from the horizon beyond was a thought that still chilled both Becca and Vince to the bone.

Russell had been bitten on the ankle while they were wandering around somewhere by the Kentucky border. They'd performed the amputation in time, but Russell had gone into a deep depression during the following days. Not just for the loss of everything below his left knee, but out of shame for slowing the group down so much during their trek to the fabled fortress of Wellington. It wasn't so bad, but since the group was being pursued by a lone, vengeful bandit sniper at the time, Russell felt like nothing but a burden who was going to get the whole group killed. He left one night while the rest were asleep, only having to briefly convince the new guy on watch that it was the only way. All he'd taken with him besides his heavy amount of guilt was his makeshift crutch, a loaded pistol, and a single bottle of water. Russell had left them a heartfelt note of apology and regret, and the last line was a request to not come after him. Of course they sent a search party after him, which included both Becca and Vince, but when they finally caught up with him, he refused to return. They gave him a whole backpack of proper supplies before trading a final farewell. They then went their separate ways; the group to Wellington, Ohio, and Russell to continue the search for his family all the way back in Statesboro, Georgia.

A few weeks after being refused entry into Wellington, the group had unexpectedly reunited with Bonnie. Though she was quite evasive to the questions of where she'd been since the fall of Howe's, they were glad to see a familiar face after all they'd already lost. Sadly, it was only a few days later when Bonnie met her end. She had offered to sacrifice her life during a surprise herd attack just to make sure her friends had time to escape. She didn't take no for an answer, claiming that the act was her only way to make up for all the deaths she'd caused; a confession that remains a mystery to both Becca and Vince to this day. In the end, she'd gone down fighting till the very last second, and didn't once cry out in pain. Whatever guilt had driven her into such a suicidal state of berserker-like fury must have been gut-wrenchingly devastating in its own right. The only good thing that had come out of that tragedy was the fact that the walkers hadn't left enough of her to reanimate into the one thing she'd always feared becoming.

Becca and Vince were the last two left out of their original circle. Honestly, before escaping the siege at Howe's Hardware, the two of them had never really talked all that often. Becca remembered that — on her end, at least — that was because there was just never any interest, or reason, to do so. Now that things were very different, however, she felt a strong desire to at least try to raise his spirits, like he'd done for her after Shel died.

"So, did Rudy ever apologize to you?" Vince beat her to reigniting their conversation, unintentionally.

"Yeah," Becca said. She gave her shoulder a gentle rub. "Like, ten times when he shot me, and another time with his aunt along back on the road when you went with the others to take a piss. I think he's scared of you, or what you would do to him."

"Why?" asked Vince. "As far as I'm concerned, he did me a bit of a favor."

"I'll remember that the next time I have to tell you to duck when another bandit with a sniper rifle's got your stomach in her crosshairs."

"Lot of good that did the first time." Vince then shifted his seating. The thought of that long-past incident brought on a ghostly sting in his abdomen. "It's been a few hours, now," he said to change the subject. "How's your shoulder doing?"

Becca scoffed. "As good as two Advils, and a nap on hard dirt are going to get it, and that's not saying much. Obviously."

"The hell _you_ complaining about," he mumbled. "It's better than a three-oh-eight to your gut."

"See, I knew you were just waiting for the right moment to bring up that bullshit!" She feigned a glower at him, but it faltered upon seeing the tiny smile tugging the side of his lip. She blew a raspberry towards the lake and chuckled. "Dude, you're worse than Shel was with that nagging, I swear."

"Well, nagging _was_ my major in college. Wouldn't have gotten this far without that wise slice of education."

"Wait, I thought I heard you say once that you never went to college?"

Vince raised a brow at her. "I did."

"No shit? Where at, Georgia State? South U? Wait, don't tell me. I bet you went to Morehouse. You seem like a Morehouse guy. I always wanted to go, but, you know. The 'boys only' thing."

"Nope, nope, and nope. I got my degree at good, old . . . FU."

Becca knitted her brows in confusion. "Where the hell's that, up north? I've never heard of —" She then sneered. Becca was too young to have ever heard that one before, but she was smart enough to catch on quickly. "Oh, fuck _you_, man," she laughed.

"Chalk another one up to Vince." He marked an imaginary tally into his palm. "Guess that makes the score, what . . . fifty to, say, negative three hundred and eight?"

Becca paused, then narrowed her eyes. "I see what you did there."

"You got to admit," he said, smirking. "You walked right into both those."

_"Ha!"_

They both suddenly froze and then ducked their heads down while trading a wide-eyed grimace. Way too loud. Gritting their teeth in a mix of amusement and embarrassment, they looked over their shoulders to see if anybody had been awakened by Becca's spur-of-the-moment guffaw.

Nope, they were good. Everyone snored on, being none the wiser. Though, just before they turned back around, they caught the brief, partially concealed glare of a woman who was laying quite close by. It would've been dismissed as mere annoyance in any other case, but considering the facts that it was Kristy, and that, upon noticing Becca and Vince's dead-center stares, she'd immediately rolled her head over with eyes closing shut at the speed of light . . .

"Dude," Becca whispered, drawling out the letters. She then hopped her eyebrows at Vince spitefully. "Looks like I made your girlfriend jealous."

"Damn it, Becca. Not this again."

"No, seriously! How can you not see this shit?"

"I'm just Kristy's friend. Nothing more. Nothing less. And, honestly, I'd like to keep it that way. We're just friends," he echoed. Although, whether it was more to reaffirm to Becca, or to himself, was debatable.

"My ass, she sees you as just a friend." Becca then got a fun idea to test out her theory. She stretched two fists into the air amidst a generous yawn, and then, without warning, she brought an arm down to drape around what she could reach of the back of Vince's neck.

"For fuck's sake," he spat as he swatted it away. He then gave her a death glare. However, it didn't last long, because he automatically followed Becca's playful gaze to see that Kristy was, indeed, watching them. As if that weren't enough, her mouth hung open in silent gasp.

The face disappeared when Kristy broke free from the trance and shot back down, inventing slumber yet again. Nope, Vince thought to himself. That was nothing but a logical reaction to a kid and an adult feigning something highly inappropriate. That was it. That was all it was. But then Kristy had to fucking go and open her eyes for a moment just to point straight at Becca and make a throat-slicing gesture. To that, Vince groaned quietly in defeat.

"See, what I tell you? Fucked up my shoulder a bit, but totally worth it."

Vince groaned. "Shut up, Becca."

"And I could've sworn she was a lesbo, too."

And then there was this opportunity to turn the tables on her. Vince seized it. "Is that right," he said. "Well, then maybe she's jealous of me, and is actually after you. Ever think of that?"

Becca almost took that bait, but was wise in that regard. "Nice try, Vince, but that doesn't explain all the looks and smiles she gives you, and why she's always trying to pull you off alone to the side. Besides, the only kid-toucher around these parts is you, Vinnie, my boy." She then hit him with the goofy looking grin of victory.

Vince buried his face into his palm. He was getting curb-stomped in a _'No, you!'_ contest against a child almost half his age. "Guess I should've expected that one. Goddamn it, Becca. You have the cleverest wit in the worst, most repulsive way. I fucking swear."

"If it were in my power to make a commercial out of you, the final slogan would be 'Vince, the First — and Last — Man for Any Lesbianic Orientation.' "

"We have to find you a grammar couch. Only about half of that even makes a bit of sense."

"Why doesn't that work? It makes total sense. Besides, it wouldn't be the first time. Did you know Shel was mostly into girls before she met you?"

Vince then turned to her, then back to the lake, then back to her. "I thought she was just fucking with me."

"Nope. Totally true. There was this lady at the pit stop before we joined up with you guys. She taught me how to play the guitar. Shel and her tried to keep it on the down-low, but I figured it out right away."

"Oh, how could I have been so blind?" he said sarcastically, humoring her. In truth, he didn't really believe she knew what she was talking about, but, as entertainment — in any form — was a rare commodity those days, he played along. "What the hell is it with me and lesbians, Becca? I just don't get it."

"Maybe you were supposed to have been born a woman, but then at the last possible second, God pressed the penis button, and then sent you down to get popped out of your mom."

"That is the last time you will ever refer to something called a _penis button_ to me ever again, you understand me?"

"See that? All _you_ heard was penis! I rest my case."

Vince tried to keep a straight face, but failed miserably. "Touché," he mumbled.

After this, Becca looked off to the side in thought. "Oh!" she said and got to her feet.

"What's up?" He didn't get an answer out of her. Instead, he sat there and watched her navigate around the maze of sleeping bags — smartly giving Kristy's a wide berth — to return to her own. Becca then reached into her rucksack and pulled out what looked like two dark bottles of beer.

"Is that beer?" asked Vince as she approached.

"Yup!"

"Give to Vince. He's very thirsty."

Becca sat back down beside him and handed him one of the two identical bottles. "Sorry, I just remembered I had these. Swiped them from a corner store back in town. Seems like a good a time as any to drink them."

"Thanks," Vince said. He then spent a prolonged moment studying the label. It was a little too scratched and faded to make out. "I can't even read what this is."

"You're not really missing much." Becca's label, on the other hand, was slightly more readable. The only problem was how it was written; some kind of European writing.

"Looks Dutch, or something."

Becca shrugged. "I can't even read what the name of this thing is. But who cares? Beer's beer."

"Doesn't smell like beer." Vince lowered his bottle from his nose. "Doesn't smell like anything, actually."

"What, you chicken?" Becca gave him a smug smirk.

Vince rolled his eyes. "I'm thirty-one, Becca. Or two. I'm not sure. Either way, that means I've already had more alcohol than you've had dinners in your life."

"Well, excuse me, then."

Vince smiled and shook his head. "But forget that," he said. "Thanks, Becca. I don't know how much longer any of us are going to be in this world, but it's little things like this these days that keeps a guy going, you know?"

Becca returned the smile. "If you ask me, Vince? I think we're going to be just fine. You know I've always got your back."

Vince chuckled solemnly. "And I've got yours." With that, his spirits suddenly rose — both the one that was his mood, and the one he held in his hand. "To friends who've always got each other's backs?" he offered.

Becca smiled right at him before shaking her head in lighthearted disagreement. "To our friendship. Plain, and simple." She then returned the gesture, completing their toast with a quiet clink.

Together, they tilted their heads back, knocked their first mouthful down in a generous gulp . . . and then spit their drinks out into one huge, combined mist.

"Holy fuck!" coughed Becca.

"God damn," Vince jeered. "I really was not expecting that to be whiskey."

"No shit, Sherlock!"

"We probably should've seen that coming when they didn't hiss when you opened them."

Once Becca finished her choking episode, she growled, "Why would they put hard liquor in something that looks like a fucking beer bottle?" Her fury quickly disappeared at the sound of Vince's growing laughter. Joining in with him, Becca wiped the dribble off her mouth with a sleeve and then followed his example of switching to nursing her bottle with much more caution. "So, yeah. If we ever tell the story someday of how you and me shared our first drink together, we're leaving that part out."

* * *

**Author's Note:** I'd like to give a quick thanks to the _Into the Fray _fan fiction series by Thunderslate. Not only did it inspire this chapter, it's made Becca and Vince my first ever BrOTP. I say "first ever" because I only just recently found out that a term like that existed. Yes, I'm very behind in the lingo of Tumblr —or wherever the hell "BrOTP" came from.


	2. Russell, Wyatt (Friendship)

**Disclaimer**: _The Walking Dead Game: Season 1_, _The Walking Dead Game: Season 2__,_ _400 Days_, and all their characters are owned by Telltale Games. _The Walking Dead_ franchise itself is owned and operated by Image Comics, AMC, Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, Charlie Adlard, and Frank Darabont. FanFiction user "cleon24769" is simply a fan with an interesting hobby.

* * *

**-****AU 2: The Resurrection Electric**

Hundreds, if not some thousands, of motionless bodies littered the clearings around the small outlet mall. There were just much too many to count. Nearly all of them had actually met a second end. Walkers were already dead, after all. A few of the corpses, however, had once been people; each with his or her own life story which they would never be able to tell again. Several brave defenders of that outdoor shopping complex had given their lives to ensure the survival of the community still at-large. Over the course of one single night, a vast ammunition supply had been nearly depleted, and the strongest barricades which hand tools and good, old-fashioned elbow grease could create were broken right through en masse. Widows and widowers had been made, and even six children were left orphaned. But the mega-herd which so very nearly devoured one of the largest known organized concentrations of survivors in the entire state of Tennessee had been decimated. No significant walker threat remained for as far as the eye could see, and the ear could hear.

The week and a half following the siege went by with very few incidents. Messes were cleaned. Stains were erased. Graves were filled with all those deserving, while the rest met their end in a daily series of funeral pyres whose onyx-black pillars drowned the stars in the sky. The great bonfires fueled by the flesh of the dead were a health-related necessity, and since most of the walkers for miles in every direction had already met their end during the siege, those loose groupings drawn to the blazes were random and light. Easily disposed of by the use of blunt weaponry.

The pyres themselves, however, were quickly realized to be too much to tolerate. The stench was unbearable; the display itself mortifying. And the children — and some of the adults — started having nightmares of flaming walkers rising from the fires to feast yet again on the flesh of the living. After lighting up the last of the corpses in one giant heap, what was left of the entire community, of which less than fifty souls now remained, temporarily relocated to one of the nearest rallying points Carver had established long ago in the form of a firehouse a mile down Main Street. It took us five days longer to return than originally planned, because we faced a second, smaller siege; then by a roving small army of bandits who'd been drawn to the town by the pyres. By the time we made them realize what a grievous mistake they had made and returned to our outlet mall, we'd found that Howe's had already been settled by what at first looked like a family of squatters. There were two women, one man, a boy, a girl, and an infant.

The tense confrontation and following decision by committee were relatively brief. The squatters understood well enough that, with thirty-five variously armed men, women, and able-bodied teenagers, we could've killed them with ease. But we didn't. We let them stay. Never mind that two of them were known to be part of the group of prisoners whom our community's original leader, Bill Carver, and his inner circle had captured earlier that month. For all we knew, they could've been responsible for drawing the herd upon Howe's that night of the siege, but we let them stay, regardless. Execution was getting old, and we all just wanted to return to our lives as a quiet community attempting to restore small segments of the civilization from before.

We'd kept them under limited surveillance for a while. It wasn't strict, by far, mainly due to the fact that those appointed to watch their every move just wanted to continue rebuilding their lives, as well. In any case, Clementine and Jane were in no position to argue, so they assimilated peacefully. Their grudge was against William "Bill" Carver, after all. Not the community.

Speaking of Carver, he was long dead. That, there was no doubt. He'd definitely been murdered by a human, and it was quickly assumed to be the work of one of those prisoners. Truth be told, few mourned his death seriously. Sure, he had started out as an idealist, and a beloved leader. Over time, however, his compassion had waned, and his aggression flourished. Fear eventually became our motivation for loyalty, and now that he was dead, so, too, were the amoral mantras of survival he'd borne. We were free to live by the fair governance of a small council of seasoned and respected individuals. I wasn't one of them, but two people in our own inner circle — Vince and Shel — were, so Wyatt, Becca, Bonnie, and I rarely had anything to worry about.

Yeah, Bonnie came back. She'd returned early on with another former prisoner, Mike, and some new Russian dude whose name escapes me. Apparently, there was some lingering animosity shared between them three, and Clementine and Jane, but with the new security team we've got keeping the peace, both groups tended to just avoid each other. That was probably as good as we were going to get, so we didn't press the matter any further. You know, I still suspected, by how deflective they all were from our initial questioning, that they had something to do with the siege, but . . . like I said, we just don't give a fuck about drama anymore. We all just wanted to live. Besides, it was also kind of nice having the whole original gang back together.

Together, we got the whole outlet mall working better than ever. Hell, the gardens had went undamaged, and so had our stockpile of rainwater and previously scavenged canned food, so no worries on sustenance there. The civilian block of the community had been repaired and upgraded, and all the barricades were re-erected with double the buttressing. With our new, interim closed-door policy on recruiting survivors, we were free to send out our vehicles further and further beyond the surrounding areas which we'd already looted dry, instead of wasting time trying to find more hands to put to work. Because of this new policy, the scavenger teams have been bringing in so much diesel, we were able to keep the electricity going without a problem. Best part was, we hopefully wouldn't have to worry about a large walker attack for a good, long while.

Now that the times had calmed, every adult in the community enjoyed a couple days off each week. Today, I was sharing my first day off with Wyatt, along with one of the only new guys we'd let join the community since the siege: Eddie. These two stoners were long-lost friends. Eddie and his group had been in the area during the night of the siege, and had come to the outskirts of the outlet mall to investigate all the rifle fire. After the herd had been cleared out, they emerged from the woods and approached with a white flag, pleading for help and shelter. We were going to turn them away with a small bag of supplies, at first, but Wyatt ran straight out and vouched for them. Eddie and Wyatt have been catching up and blazing away Eddie's seemingly bottomless stash ever since. I've always stayed away from that stuff myself, but watching those two fools make some dumbass racket was entertaining, considering there wasn't much left anymore in the way of recreation.

That is, until our day off today. The last batch of scavengers came back with a good haul. Well, relatively speaking. From a certain point of view, they came back with nothing in terms of useable provisions, but Tyler and Octavia — rarely a couple willing to return home _completely_ empty-handed — brought back unused car batteries, just like I'd once asked them to sometime ago in case they would happen to run into any. I needed car batteries for my project, since we had a new rule to only use the electrical outlets for the essentials, like powering our ACs, fans, or charging up our walkie-talkies or rechargeable alkalines. Anyways, they brought more car batteries than we'd ever need, and seeing as how only two other people here knew anything about engineering — and since they were too interested in keeping the generators, lights, and alarms in tip-top shape — I decided to put my incomplete education to the test, unhindered.

I've been using my day off trying to figure out how to fix up this old, busted-up Nintendo 64 to get it playing on this fatass CRT TV. I knew that Goodwill we left alone at the corner of the mall would come in handy one day.

Wyatt, Eddie, and I — as well as a bunch of others of various ages whose names I never could remember — were lounging around in our new rumpus/break room. Really, it was just the comic store repurposed to include couches, a makeshift water tap attached to the rainwater catcher on the roof, and a nifty solar-powered radio that played random music off an iPod all the time at a low volume. Well, everyone else was lounging around, chatting away or reading comics. I was performing an operation on my N64 in an attempt to bring this baby back to life. It'd been a couple of hours already, and noon was coming. Wyatt and Eddie had showed up pretty early, saying they'd like to help out because they had nothing else to do, but since they weren't actually doing anything except debating about movies they'd watched and reminiscing about inside stories they'd shared, I quickly suspected they were just waiting to call first dibs on my Nintendo.

Wyatt finished making a joke, where he then looked over at me as I held up the open console closer to my face, and the light. "Hey, Russ," he said, impatiently. "Are you _still_ trying to bend those nipples on that green thingy? I'm starting to think you've been shitting us, dude."

"I'm not bending anything. And it's called a motherboard, Wyatt."

"My mother would be bored waiting around for you, too."

For the love of all that is holy. I hate puns so goddamned much, but that one was just so lame, he earned a chuckle from me. "Engineering technology was my major," I said. "Not quite exactly pertaining to what I'm doing now, but I've got an idea of the basics. Besides, I'll let you have your skepticism this time, only because of all the shit I gave you when I found out you were into baking."

—

_"Holy shit, this pie is amazing! Where did you find this, Wyatt?"_

_"It's a crostata, dude. A cros-ta-ta. And, actually, I . . . I made it."_

_". . . Get the fuck out of here. How?"_

_"I, uh, I learned baking as a hobby a few years ago."_

_"This have something to do with weed brownies?"_

_"Come on, Russ. It doesn't always go back to weed."_

_"All right. I'm sorry." _

_"But, well . . . I guess it started that way. Then I realized how much I loved baking." _

_Chortle. Snicker._

_"No, dude. I'm serious! It's not funny. Once you've made your first soufflé without fucking it up and making it look like a deflated truck tire, you feel invincible!_

—

"Fair enough, then," said Wyatt.

"Just trust him, bro," Eddie said. "He knows what he's doing." He then looked right at me, unsure. "Right?"

"I'll admit that I never got the chance to finish my degree, what with the outbreak and all that. Not to mention I wasn't in the Guard long enough to get a chance to see some action."

Eddie's already bugged-out eyes bulged even more, just a little bit. "The Guard?" he echoed. "Wait, as in the Coast Guard?"

"No, dingus!" scolded Wyatt, who already knew about this part of my past. "The National Guard."

Thank you, Wyatt. And for real, Eddie. Come on. This friend of Wyatt's been smoking way too much of that reefer, I swear.

"What made you want to join up?" asked Eddie.

"Always wanted to serve, just like my mother and uncle before me."

"How'd you make it while going to school?"

"I got through basic in-between semesters, but they never called me up when the shit started hitting the fan."

"Dude, nobody called anybody when the shit started hitting the fan," said Wyatt. By the way his voice had gotten so impassioned, it sounded like he was about to indulge in one of his impromptu conspiracy theories again. "I think our military got wiped out, or something. I mean, seriously. Think about it. When was the last time you saw anybody, alive or dead, in body armor and camo?"

Eddie nodded enthusiastically, his eyes lighting up in excitement. "I'm telling you man, it was the Russians who started the walker outbreak. Or, even China! Experimental warfare gone wrong! That's the only explanation for why the military got wiped out!"

There was nothing else to do while I put the screws back into the console, so I decided to humor them. "You telling me that these walkers are some commie weapon gone horribly wrong — or, right?"

"Hell, yeah, bro! You remember those last news reports of, like, brigades of Marines and Army guys massing on the northwest coast before the networks went all static-y? That had to be the Russians invading, or the Chinese, man! Or both!"

"Couldn't be. Otherwise, I would've been called out there, too. A foreign army on American soil? First units that get activated are the National Guard."

"Whatever. I don't want to argue. Anyways, that's cool you were in the Army, bro, even if you still were just technically a reserve recruit, or whatever. Guess that's why you're so damn good with a gun. I always just assumed it was because you were —"

"Dude!" screeched Wyatt.

"What, man?"

"Don't get all racial profiling, and shit! That's not cool."

That earned them both a glare from me. Though, not wanting to come off as some overreacting sissy due to an obvious flub from a total tweeker who couldn't stop half the shit coming out of his mouth if his life depended on it, anyway, I decided to throw a curve ball of my own.

"Since when are Jews a race?"

Both their expressions dropped, their arms went limp at their sides, and they shot their faces right at mine with looks that seemed to silently say, "You have got to be fucking kidding me."

"You're Jewish?" asked Wyatt. "Russell, seriously? I've known you for almost two years now, and I never knew that. I feel bad."

"Couldn't blame you. Ever since the walkers, going to temple wasn't exactly high up there on my list of priorities."

"Really?" Eddie's head then drooped, an eyebrow raised in defiance. "You're. Jewish."

I pulled out the end of a necklace from beneath my shirt collar. Lo and behold, the pendant was a Star of David. "Shalom, motherfucker."

Wyatt laughed, nodding in encouragement. "Right on, dude."

Eddie, on the other hand, still gawked on in disbelief. _"Really?"_ he asked again, his voice breaking at the pitch he just achieved. Why was everything so fucking fascinating to him?

"What, just because of the color of my skin, I can't be Jewish? I don't — why does that surprise you? Shit, I just got done hearing you guys talk about the Rush Hour trilogy for half an hour. Chris Tucker's character was Jewish in those movies."

"He was?"

"Nuh-uh."

"Albeit subtly, sure, but still one, nonetheless. Remember? You know . . . _'guh-fill-kuh fay-yush!'_ _"_

Oh, God. That was a terrible impression. Note to self: never do that again.

At that, Eddie narrowed his eyes and looked off to the side for a few moments, looking deep in thought. His lips looked like they were silently chanting the words "albeit subtly" over and over again. Finally, he nodded with a triumphant little smile. Guess it was obvious which one of us went to college, and which one of us didn't.

"Oh!" Wyatt suddenly blurted. "Back to the Rooskies, dude."

Eddie nodded. "Yeah."

"I just thought about it. What if it just wasn't the Russians, or just the Chinese?"

Eddie's mouth gaped. "What are you getting at, bro?"

"What if . . . it had been the whole world against us?" He then made a dramatic display of a Jazz hands gesture for effect.

"Wyatt, you're scaring me."

He shook his head. "No, look! Check this out. Remember the Beijing Olympics? Remember when they played all those drums in the opening ceremony? What if those drums were . . . were _Morse Code?"_

Eddie's eyes widened in shock. "Dude . . ."

"Yeah, like, remember the audience? You should've seen the audience during the opening ceremony! All the Americans were all laughing and clapping, but all the other countries in the stands kept looking right at each other, and going, like —" He made a discreet thumbs-up gesture at an imaginary person off in the distance. He then simulated this distant imaginary person's response to himself with an ominous, yet subtle, knowing nod of acknowledgement.

They shared a laugh, and traded another couple of minutes' worth of lighthearted conspiratorially theoretic banter. Soon, a sudden loud snap caught their attention, and they shot their gazes in my direction, looking as if they feared that a hole in the world had just opened up right beside them. All I'd done was flick on our makeshift electricity.

With that, I announced with victory, "Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention, please. We've! Got! Game!"

The screen came to life, and these magic words were said amongst a cheesy and upbeat synthesized intro song that brought a smile to every face within earshot: _"Welcome to Mario Kart!"_

* * *

**Author's Note: **Bit of trivia. This has been my first attempt at the first-person narration; let alone a limited point of view, as opposed to omniscient.


	3. Bonnie, Shel (Action)

**Disclaimer**: _The Walking Dead Game: Season 1_, _The Walking Dead Game: Season 2__,_ _400 Days_, and all their characters are owned by Telltale Games. _The Walking Dead_ franchise itself is owned and operated by Image Comics, AMC, Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, Charlie Adlard, and Frank Darabont. FanFiction user "cleon24769" is simply a fan with an interesting hobby.

* * *

**-****AU 3: An Account of the Bonnie Unstoppable**

Reticle between the eyes. When the trigger pulled, however, pink mist shot out from the chin.

"Too damn low," the redhead growled. Shaking her head at such a frustrating miscalculation, she got off her belly and rose from the long grass with her Mosin-Nagant held downwards at rest. A red sun was rising behind her slender shoulders, causing the blues in her eyes to cast fire incarnate; veiled in the shadow of her silhouette.

The masked man still twitched as Bonnie approached from her sniping position. There was no one around in any direction, so she ignored the precaution of keeping her scoped rifle raised. Although, she wasn't completely relaxed; sunlight gleamed off the slim shank of steel affixed to the end of her weapon's barrel. Bonnie then rolled the dying bandit onto his belly, set the tip of her bayonet upon the top-center of his head, and drove it clean through to prevent reanimation. Afterwards, she sighed and examined her handiwork wrecked upon this member of the bandit gang whom she'd been tracking across the whole damn county of _Whereverthehellsville_.

Bonnie then held her long rifle like a walking stick; fingers wrapped around its barrel with its buttstock flat on the ground. "Waste of a good bullet," she chided herself, hushed. "Wish I could take it back from your thick, fucking skull, you piece of shit."

Suddenly, she let her rifle drop limply to the dirt while she spun in place, dropping to one knee. Arms extended, Bonnie fired three rapid shots out of the SIG P226 she'd already drawn from its waist holster mid-spin. The second bandit who had jumped out from behind that tree fell flat on her back, her hatchet clonking away from her hand. The third just adjacent fell almost as quickly, but he had doubled back behind his own tree once taking both of Bonnie's bullets in the arm. The next bullet had hit bark, of course, but Bonnie dropped him all the same once that bandit, in panic, had broken cover to attempt an escape.

Seven rounds spent. Nine still ready to go. That's what Bonnie loved about her newfound pistol. So what if it was "merely" chambered in nine millimeter? Fifteen rounds, plus one in the chamber, was plenty of firepower in its own goddamned right. And it's not like walkers had skulls made of steel, and the last time she'd seen anybody wearing body armor was back on the east coast.

With the fight over, Bonnie retrieved her rifle and stabbed the last two bandits through their foreheads. She had expected the first wasn't alone. Bandits rarely traveled as such; even if they were only a scout. The explosion from her high-powered rifle was a no-brainer in drawing attention, as well, but, not feeling particularly patient that day, Bonnie had approached the first dying bandit with a false mien of victory in her movements to use as a distraction meant to lull her ambushers into a false sense of superiority. Precarious, indeed, but patience was a virtue who'd always been estranged from revenge, and vengeance was just what had exactly been dominating Bonnie's mind — day in, day out — for a week and a half now.

Bonnie looted the bodies for a couple of protein bars and a canteen of water before continuing on her way. Dory, the apparent leader of the gang of bandits she'd been tailing, was wising up. Each recent scouting party or group of lookouts had been armed with just about everything except long-distance weaponry. Looked like Dory had learned his lesson after Bonnie swiped that Russian sniper rifle off his right-hand man's corpse the week before. It was almost a pity, thought Bonnie, that Dory's subjects were too stupid to know that their only purpose for being left behind was to slow Bonnie down and hopefully point her in the wrong direction. Funnily enough, they were leaving a convenient trail to follow. Even more interesting was the fact that Bonnie just realized she'd walked blindly into an ambush.

Bonnie dove and disappeared into the yellowed long grass. Gunfire and smoky dirt flew all around her, but there was no cover; only concealment. Careful not to bend the blades she scrambled through too much to make her position obvious, Bonnie escaped the kill zone and wind-sprinted on all fours towards a stone formation over thirty paces away. Rounding behind the stones suddenly brought her face to face with an incapacitated walker stuck into the ground with a metal pole. A quick stab through its eye socket ended it easily enough, though.

Bonnie cursed at her predicament. She was pinned down, but on the bright side, at least she'd apparently managed to barely avoid the now-random aiming her attackers had adopted. If they truly didn't know where she was, she could use that to her advantage.

On her belly, she peaked out the side of her cover and peered into her rifle scope, careful to stay as inconspicuous amongst the grass as she could. The sun lay high above, so the odds of the glass reflecting a twinkle were slim.

A few minutes of studying their movements and eventual ceasefire revealed that there weren't as many as she'd feared. From what she could see as they began their vigilant advance towards her general direction, there were only four of them. Three with assault rifles, and the last had some sort of light machine gun. Oh, that Dory. Quite the war party he'd sent. If anything, Bonnie found herself just a tiny bit flattered. Curious, as well, because it highlighted a rather nagging question: just how many people did Dory have under his command? Bonnie and her friends must have killed at least twenty of them in the past month alone, and then were those today.

They'd be on her in under a minute. Bonnie's rock was just too obvious a hiding place even for the densest of mooks. Her reticle centered on the forehead of the one with the light machine gun. He'd be the priority, if Bonnie were to engage. Her cover would be blown, however, and, if the rest were brave enough, they'd charge her spot down. Even with her SIG, it'd be a risky venture. No, she opted for sitting tight. Hopefully, it wouldn't have to come to any of that. There was a wild card up her sleeve, and, after having heard all that gunfire from no weapon she herself possessed, it should've been coming into play right about then.

Speak of the devil. A volley of gunfire erupted from the sideward tree line. The light machine gunner and one of the riflemen dropped right where they stood. In a panic, the last two adopted Bonnie's initial strategy and dove, using the terrain to hide. They didn't realize, however, that long grass didn't conceal all that well when bent to and fro during the route towards cover or freedom. More automatic fire was directed at the given-away positions. Once a pause was reached to reload, all remained silent except for the wailing death rattles of a female bandit.

Six figures emerged from the woods. Half were dressed alike in old, black police uniforms with thin Kevlar vests, while the other half simply wore traveling clothes, like Bonnie. Rifles raised, they completed their cautioned approach in pairs towards three of the bandit's last known position. All three were accounted for and stabbed through the head, while Bonnie did the same to the one closest to her. Afterwards, the two parties reunited.

"Took y'all long enough," said Bonnie, her eyebrows raised.

Shel grunted. "You made us wait over half a mile off. That's not exactly a stone's throw away."

The youngest of the group rubbed his shoulder and nervously surveyed their surroundings with that eternal frown of his. "There might be more not-nice people around," he said in a heavy Eastern European accent. "We must remain aware."

Mike patted his foreign-born protégée on the back. "Don't stress yourself out, kid," he said. "You'll get wrinkles all over your forehead like me, and you wouldn't be able to make it look as good as I can."

"Think you can lug this one around?" Lilly, the leader of the trio of militia, held up the light machine gun at her largest comrade.

Little Calvin sneered, running a hand up his balding, greying hair. He was shorter than Lilly by a good three inches, but his huge frame was a generous mixture of both muscle and fat. "That some sort of joke, Boss?" he asked irreverently. "If it is, it ain't funny. Just give it." He slung the hefty gun over his shoulder, careful not to advertise any strain or effort on his part.

Shel slung one of the dead bandit's Kalashnikovs onto her back, as did Mike and Arvo. Any new gun was a welcome spoil of war to offer to their new community, Hope's Mainstay, back up north. Shel then turned to Bonnie. "We got the location of their hideout, by the way."

"Really? From who?"

"One of them came running right into our hiding place. Straight from the direction we'd heard your pistol go off, like, seven times. Guess you missed one of them."

"Should've expected as much." Bonnie shook her head. "Good shit you got him, though. That could've been a disaster. So, where's it at?"

"On the coast. You'll never believe where, though. Come on. I'll fill you in on the way."

Once each looted magazine was pocketed by those holding the matching firearm, the group moved out. It was late in the afternoon when they finally spotted the oddity in the distance, through their cover of trees. There, out in the sand on the shore of the Atlantic, was a beached cargo ship. The freighter looked humongous with its front half out of water. At least nine hundred feet in length, all of it near-completely intact. The only damage it seemed to have taken from running ashore looked to be from its front section. Patches on its belly, long-since torn away, exposed bits of the ship's metallic skeleton beneath.

Arvo kept watch for any walkers as the rest of the group individually pulled out their array of binoculars. Through them, they could make out a collection of finer details. Most obvious, of course, was the fact that the immediate area around the ship had become an unintentional maze of rainbow-colored steel. A couple dozen forty-foot intermodal containers had splashed randomly throughout, dented upon or partially crushed from each other's impact. Most of the cargo remained on the ship's deck, however. The ones which remained had been mostly in the middle rows, both up and down. The top-most containers sported opened doors, or had been hollowed out into shacks. The rank below these steel homes served as the walkways. By the rags, drapes, cooking amenities, and canopies sprinkled about, the setup was a nice, miniature city settled high above the reach of any walker. If it weren't for the fact that the place was so outright filthy, that single defensive attribute would've easily made the ship a step up over Hope's Mainstay.

The sun was setting, but not fast enough. The movements of lively figures could be seen across the deck, so whoever called that thing home was still wide awake.

"We've got to get a closer look at what we're dealing with here," said Lilly.

"No, fuck this." Robbie, the third militia member, rose to his feet. "Just hold on, here, man. Nobody said anything about going up against a fucking aircraft carrier!"

Lilly groaned and rolled her eyes. "It's not an aircraft carrier. Besides, it's already beached."

"I thought we were just up against some shitty, little camp. You know, like . . . tents, and a treehouse for a lookout tower, and _maybe_ even a few of those concrete barriers you used to see on the road sometimes. Maybe, but not this!"

Calvin sighed, shaking his head. "We're out of our league here, Boss," he said. "The seven of us can't take down a whole town."

"We don't _have_ to take out the _whole_ town," Shel said. "We just need to hold them off long enough to get our people out. That's it!" She then glared at Robbie, who had taken a threatening step towards her.

"And what happens after that, huh?" he asked heatedly. "You ever think about the possibility of a hundred pissed-off raiders deciding to take their machine guns and head back to our base to kill half of our entire fucking community in revenge?"

Mike smirked. "Ain't nowhere near a hundred."

"That's a goddamned fortress, Shel," said Calvin. "We wouldn't even know where to look. We'd be killed before we even found out where they keep their prisoners. Hell, we . . . I'm sorry, but we aren't even sure if any of them are still alive."

"But —!"

"And you're not going in there, either. We can't, in good conscious, stand by and just allow somebody to march off and get themselves killed, or worse. We just won't. Not when it's in our power to stop them. Let's just get back to Hope's."

"I swear to God," Shel said. "I fucking swear to God that if any of you even _think_ about trying to keep me away from my family, I'll kill you myself."

"Shel, it's over." Calvin gave a heavy sigh. "We're going home. All of us. That's non-negotiable."

Shel was offended on so many levels. Yet, despite the rage that was boiling her blood and reddening her cheeks, she couldn't bring herself to pressure them further. This was borne from the fact that she'd just realized that, at some point, she'd started hovering her hand over her pistol holster, as if her subconscious were compelling her to coerce them by gunpoint. The bandits were her enemy, not these three militia grunts who'd willingly volunteered to accompany her, Bonnie, Mike, and Arvo of their own accord. Nonetheless, Shel's shivering glower penetrated Calvin on a personal level, but the militia sergeant took it quite smoothly.

"I can tell you're serious about this," he said. "We're supposed to stop you. It's our job to, but I doubt we actually will. The least we can do is try to talk you out of this one last time."

Shel shook her head. "Those sons of bitches have my baby sister, and my husband, in there," Shel said. "Look, you all can stay here, or go, or laugh, or cry, or whatever. It doesn't matter to me, and it's not my place to force any of you to do this. I'm not about to beg you to put your lives on the line for me, either. I'm nobody to you. You've barely just met me. I get that, but I'm only going to say this once. Don't you dare try to stop me. I'm doing this alone, if I have to."

"Now, when did you get that idea? You know I'm with you, girl." Bonnie's smile was a sad one, yet it somehow felt encouraging at the same time. "Hell, what kind of a friend would I be if I made you do this all by your lonesome?"

"Don't forget about us, now," Mike said. His arms were even crossed. "We've got your back, too."

"Yes," Arvo said, nodding. "We also will help. You will soon see Vince and Becca. I swear it."

Shel's frown softened. "Thanks, guys."

"You're all about to stir up a hornet's nest out there." Calvin shook his head. "It's suicide. I'm not going anywhere near that ship."

"Neither am I," said Robbie. "I'm sorry, but I've got my own family to worry about back at Hope's. I mean, shit. If I don't make it home, I don't know who'd kill me more — my uncle, or my girlfriend."

Lilly stared wearily at both of her underlings. "You do know we're doing this, right?"

Both Calvin and Robbie shot looks of surprise at her. "Uh, no the fuck we're not!" countered Robbie. At the narrowing of Lilly's eyes, however, he shrunk down ever so slightly. "Ma'am," he quickly added.

"I've got seniority here, and you both know it. Because of that seniority, what I say, goes. _That's_ non-negotiable."

"Come on, Boss. It's not our fight!"

Bonnie stepped up to help confront the two. "What do you mean, it's not your fight? Don't you remember who else is in there? It's not just Shel's family. You saw what happened during the raid. There's others there who need our help. Petey, Lorenzo, Veronica . . . hell, there is a little boy in there who's but six years old. Are you telling me that you're both willing to just leave them to the mercy of those sickos? You know, even if we were to just go back home, they'd just keep raiding us, and raiding us, until there's nothing and nobody left to take!"

"That's exactly right," said Lilly. "We are finding a way to end this shit here and now. We've got to take all of them out, and we're saving our people in the process. That's our fucking job, and we're going to do it. No question about it."

When they both conceded, Shel smiled at both Lilly and Bonnie. "Thank you," she whispered.

Lilly nodded solemnly. "Right, so let's start off by at least seeing what we're up against here. Shel, you and me are going to scope out the front and left sides. Mike and Arvo? Trade weapons with Robbie and Calvin. They'll need the sound suppressors to walk a beat around this whole perimeter to silence any possible patrols or sentries they can find. In the meantime, see what you two can find out around the far right side."

"What exactly are we looking for?" asked Mike.

"Ballpark estimates on enemy numbers," started Lilly. "Booby traps you might be able to spot. Tower locations. Weaknesses we can exploit, like possible points of electricity they might be using, or a big-ass gas tank sitting somewhere on deck. Most important — a way in. Ladders, ropes, a hole to climb up . . . anything." Lilly then raised her binoculars and motioned for the best long-distance shooter of their group to stand by her side. "Bonnie, you see those buildings over there?"

Bonnie redirected her scope in the direction Lilly was pointing at. It was a small, recreational pier with what looked like old restaurants or fishing shops on both sides. It was attached to a concrete promenade leading to more buildings further down. "Sure do," she replied. "Need me up on one of those roofs?"

"Hell, yeah. Keep an eye out for us. Do not shoot unless you absolutely have to. This is just a bit of recon, for now, but if they spot us and start firing, we'll need you to cover our escape as best you can." She then turned to the group as a whole. "We've all got to keep our distance, and stay out of sight of any lookouts on the deck while we're doing this. Watch out for walkers, as always. One hour tops, and we all sneak back to Bonnie's position." Lilly paused, giving a final moment just to make sure she didn't miss anything. "All right. Let's hustle."

The pier was a fair distance from where the ship lay. The place was deserted, of course. Those left to meander the storefronts were only the walking dead.

Bonnie climbed up onto the flat roof of the building closest towards the ship. Evidently, it had been a restaurant specializing in boiled shellfish, but Bonnie pushed the thought from her mind. Last thing she needed at a time like that was the distracting nostalgia of a pre-apocalyptic seafood dinner.

Through her scope, she could make out armed guards patrolling the deck. A single lookout sat on an armchair on the patio area of the tallest point of the ship towards the back. By the large glass viewports facing frontward, this was presumably where the bridge and steering section were located.

Nothing out of the ordinary occurred for the rest of the hour. There appeared to be no set pattern followed by all the bandits killing time on the residential deck. Even the sentries seemed to not be paying any attention to their duties. When the others returned to the pier to link back up with Bonnie, she had nothing much to report that wasn't already known by the others.

The sun was almost down when Bonnie climbed off her roof to speak with the others. Out of safety, they'd all worked together to quietly dispatch every walker they saw on the pier.

"What did you guys find out?" Bonnie asked.

"First, take this," said Calvin. He handed Bonnie a walkie-talkie, then gave the last two to Shel and Lilly, who handed hers off to Mike. "Anyways, make sure to keep those on channel seventeen. Most of the ones before that have a lot of traffic on them."

"We found out how they're keeping the place lit up," said Lilly. "They've got a huge propane tank on the back left side of the ship. Must be running their electricity."

Shel shrugged. "Not much else other than that. There's just a load of walkers pointlessly reaching up for the bandits up top from the bottom."

"There's a lot of containers all bunched together on the right side," said Mike. "They go out to sea a bit, but they look stable and close enough to jump over. There's some sort of lower platform near the very back of that thing, so I think we can hop the containers and climb up from there."

"The area around this place is clear." Calvin pointed towards a specific spot back from whence they'd come from. "Only thing we came across was a camp of about six of those bastards. It's where we got the walkie-talkies. We took them all out quiet and quickly enough."

"What were they even doing there?" asked Bonnie.

"They were working on restoring these busted-up jeeps in an old garage. None of them are working, though."

Robbie turned to Lilly. "So, what's the plan, Boss?" he asked.

Lilly stared at the ship, along with everyone else. "First step? We wait for nightfall."

Through cover of darkness, the boarding party had used Mike's route to creep up onto the deck of the ship. From there, the group split up. Mike and Arvo stayed up top to rig an improvised explosive device onto the propane tank. The IED was of Arvo's creation. He claimed that he could remotely detonate the bomb just by pressing a precise combination of buttons on Mike's walkie-talkie. Shel had gone with the professionals below decks to locate the prisoners.

The next few minutes of the operation had its fair share of hitches. Arvo and Mike had gotten pinned down by gunfire, but Bonnie took out every threat she could get her crosshairs on. Her aim was deadly, and it terrified the bandits. It got to the point where the remaining bandits up on deck eventually gave up and ran for various entrances that led below deck. Bonnie heard Mike give a warning to Shel over the walkie-talkie that more were coming down. When Shel answered back, there was much gunfire going on in the background.

"We need help!" said Shel. "There's too many of them!"

"Shit," Bonnie said into her own walkie-talkie. "Mike, Arvo, get down there and help them out!"

"You got it," he said. She saw them run into one of the entrances leading down.

Bonnie sat there for many tense minutes, worrying. There was nothing left to do till she got an answer of what was going on. Every now and then, she'd hear a brief, garbled transmission over the walkie-talkie. It sounded like Shel, but it was mostly gunfire and, much to Bonnie's apprehension . . . moans. Were there walkers down there?

Suddenly, "Bonnie!"

She jumped at the sound. "I'm here," she said into her walkie-talkie. "Are you okay, Shel?"

"We've got the prisoners! Everybody's safe, thank God! But . . ."

Bonnie sighed. She knew there had to be a catch. "What's wrong?"

"Something doesn't feel right. Is the outside clear? We're coming out soon."

"I've taken out every threat on the deck. It's good to go. There was only five of them, not including the ones who ran below decks. I think most of the bandits were below decks to begin with. Anyways, I'll keep y'all covered, just in case."

"That's the thing. Like I said — something doesn't feel right. There were so few guards down here. And the walkers . . ." The sound of Shel's revolver blasted over the radio. "This place is crawling with walkers. I think this was their sick idea of a trap. None of us have seen that Dory asshole, either." Another of her gunshots over the radio. "We're coming up now."

Everything was just going too smoothly that Bonnie suddenly became very paranoid. This state of mind compelled her to shift her body weight to study the entire area around her, but the search was fruitless.

She began flipping through the frequencies, staying at each one for a few seconds at a time. This paid off soon enough. At the eleventh channel, a voice she'd never heard before was just finishing up a sentence. ". . . from the beach, but I can't see shit," the male voice said. Another voice, female, told him to use his flashlight for no more than one second at a time, every five seconds, to gauge how far they were from the sand. The female voice made it a point to reiterate this increment, or the _sniper_ would see him.

Bonnie gulped at this. They knew she was at the pier. She started surveying the wide stretch of area between the pier, and the container ship. She counted six _Mississippis_, but no small point of light caught her eye in the darkness. She counted another six, and then another, but nothing looked out of the ordinary. The thought quickly hit her: what if they were coming in from behind the pier, or even _beneath_ it? The latter was too difficult for her to do without leaving the safety of her roof, so Bonnie swiveled around and spent the next minute watching the whole area behind her.

The moon was nice and bright that night, but the darkness beyond the pier was still too thick to see anything clearly at a distance. Unless her eyes were playing tricks on her, there were black figures converging quickly onto her pier from down the beach. Sure, it could've been walkers, but they almost seemed to be hunched over, and at speed.

Bonnie reached over and fished a large, red stick out of her backpack. It was her last rocket flare. Hesitation stopped her from using it right away. If it was only walkers, then not only would she have wasted a flare, but her exact position could be advertised. If she didn't use it, however, her chance of cutting some of the enemy down before they got too close would fly her by. "Fuck it," Bonnie said. She shot it high into the air.

It took a few seconds, but the flare's little parachute unraveled and a dazzling red twinkle appeared in the sky, slowly drifting down. The pier and surrounding area were illuminated in an amber light. What she then saw caused her eyes to widen.

Through the open spaces in-between the buildings across hers, she could see them — still down on the beach, but closing in at a mere quarter-mile, or so. There must have been close to twenty, all armed with assault rifles, shotguns, or bolt-actions. Three empty boats had been rammed onto the beach from the sea, with one last full of figures still heading in, coming to reinforce the shore party. Like all movement across sand, the shore party was lopsided in their silent charge, but it wouldn't take long before they'd make it up to the promenade, and then the entrance to her pier.

Bonnie engaged with no further hesitation. Two shots left her Mosin-Nagant, dropping two bandits where they stood and causing the rest to either scatter or go prone. She crawled out of sight and immediately began reloading. As she cursed the fact that her apprehension had denied her the aim of any headshot, the sound of a bullhorn from the direction of the incoming boat squealed through past the cacophony of sudden random gunfire.

"Look, there he is on — piece of shit!" The bullhorn had squealed in feedback, causing its user to bang it in frustration.

Bonnie could've recognized that squeaky, parrot's fart of a voice from anywhere. Dory had abandoned ship, and had led his men through the darkness of the sea to flank the sniper they figured had been nesting at the pier. Rather, he was leading from the rear, as usual.

"Wait, is that . . .? Aw, bullshit — it _is!_ It's that fucking ginger sniper from Hope's! It's Bonnie! She's on the roof of that reddish-orange building!"

"Dory," a second bullhorn from the shore party called. "Dory, the flare makes them all look reddish-orange. Which one?"

"The one with the logo with the fucking shrimps on it, you moron! Goddamn it, Carrington! Everybody, just — just kill her! Kill her dead, now!"

Bonnie took out two more bandits in three shots before the pier went dark. The flare had been spent. She then grabbed her walkie-talkie. "Shel, I've got a lot of incoming. It's Dory. They sailed around on boats and — shit!" Bonnie fired a blind shot right back at the general direction of who almost hit her. The flare was long gone, but from the angle of the ricochet, at least one bandit must have climbed up onto the promenade already. "I'm getting goddamned surrounded," she hissed into her walkie-talkie. "I've got to take them head-on. Wish me luck, guys."

With that, she left her walkie-talkie and backpack on the roof and she made for the edge. The last thing she remembered having heard from Shel was something about holding on, and being there soon. She then jumped right off with rifle in hand, and pistol on hip. Sand broke her fall, and she began attaching her bayonet as she broke into a difficult sprint back around; uphill towards the promenade. Suddenly, the taste of sand was in her mouth, and grains were hitting her face. She was getting shot at from the direction of the ship. Some bandits had taken up defensive positions somewhere on the beach and had seen her figure jump down. This cutoff group negated any chance of a potential escape back towards her friends.

The bandits up top, however, were none the wiser. By the muzzle flashes in the moonlight, they were all still aiming for the roof of the shellfish restaurant. Bonnie made it back onto the pier to flee the volleys from the beach, and quickly charged at the nearest, lone bandit who was firing from around a corner of the building close to the pier's entrance. The bandit screamed in pain as Bonnie's bayonet disappeared into her upper back, piercing her left lung.

"There she is!"

"Fuck," Bonnie muttered. She then pressed up into the wall to avoid the redirection of gunfire. If she would move just a few inches, she could be hit.

When looking around for a means of safety, Bonnie noticed she'd been standing near a window all along. She bashed it in with the buttstock of her rifle, ran the buttstock along the window's edges to remove any shards of glass still sticking out, and then threw her Mosin-Nagant far inside. She did this to free her hands for the AR-15 and magazines from the bandit she'd just mortally stabbed. She then clambered inside the window to find herself in the backroom of a fishing supply store.

Immediately, she crouched low. To her right was a wide window and glass door leading out to a wooden balcony overlooking the spot she'd taken fire from the beach. The balcony itself was only about a foot wide — seemingly there for no other reason than to look pretty from the outside. Still, Bonnie figured she could use it as a rearward escape, should the need arise. Albeit, a risky one, considering its proximity to the cutoff group.

To her left was a door that presumably led to the front of the store. With her sniper rifle in one hand, and the automatic in her other, she crawled over towards it and kicked it open while seated. It swung open, un-muffling the gunfire outside in the process. She topped off her Mosin-Nagant and sat it against the wall for easy access, then took cover behind the marble counter. She opened fire at the muzzle flashes she could see through the storefront windows, taking out at least one by a reactionary wail of pain.

At this point, the displays and walls erupted. Gunfire racked every inch as the bandits quickly gathered outside her store. Bonnie pressed her back against her counter, hoping its material would hold against the bombardment. When she opted for returning for the backroom and taking her chances with the cutoff party outside, that's when it happened.

A massive explosion off in the distance shook the very ground. Bonnie had been facing the backroom the whole time. While she couldn't see where it had come from due to her obstructed vantage point on the floor, she could see the red and black cloud through the window. Sneaking back in for a moment, she saw what happened plainly through the window. The back half of the container ship was completely on fire, illuminating the sea and beach around it for hundreds of meters in every direction. In fact, because of this illumination, she could see three prone silhouettes in the sand. It was that cutoff group who'd opened fire on her when she had jumped off the roof. Like the other bandits, those three had stopped firing to stare in horror at their home burning partially into the sea. Bonnie seized this opportunity by breaking open the window with the butt of her Mosin-Nagant to kill all of them.

The situation looked bad, regardless. She hoped her friends had made it out okay. Her worries were soon washed away, however, when she caught sight of the large group of various-sized outlines running down the beach towards the pier. That had to be them.

Turning back to the matter at hand, Bonnie took advantage of the momentary ceasefire and fired at the first person she saw outside the front of the store, hitting him in the throat. The bombardment resumed, and she ducked back down behind the counter. Just before having done so, though, something had caught her eye on the floor. Though it was for just a second, her memory served her to agree that it was a bright blue bottle. If her hunch was correct, it was something she could use to even the odds a little more. Bonnie risked the gunfire by rounding around from the safety of the counter. She then carefully but hurriedly crawled towards the bottle. Her hunch was right. There was that familiar logo in the form of a red stripe and box logo. It was a quart of kerosene un-looted after all this time.

She looked up at the nearby display and saw there were actually multiple bottles of it sitting upon the lowest shelf, untouched by all the gunfire. The bandits were closing in, so she opened as many as she could, and then urgently began coating the tiled floors and plastic displays with kerosene. Of course, she was careful not to get any on herself. Using the last two bottles, she left a trail that led all the way into the backroom. There, she waited.

Right outside the front window, she could see a group of at least four bandits preparing for entry. They yelled at each other, presumably deflecting responsibility of who had to go in first. Bonnie would've actually started shooting at this point, but then they'd just run off. Instead, she waited until two threw caution to the wind and sprinted inside, guns spraying the shelves and displays.

The rest remained at the window, firing blindly from outside. They then held their fire to allow the two inside to make for the door that led to the backroom Bonnie was hiding in. When just one more bandit joined the two already inside, Bonnie decided it was time.

Using her cigarette lighter, she lit the trail and jumped off the balcony towards the sand below. Hellish screams came from behind her, confirming she'd lit up at least two of them. One of them even jumped off that same balcony, ablaze. Bonnie gasped, as she landed face down a mere two feet away from her. Evidently, this bandit fell in panic and rolled her flesh and clothes all over the kerosene at some point, completely engulfing herself in the process. The bandit got up and attempted to run for the waves, but collapsed just short of the water.

A loud crash behind her caught Bonnie's attention. A large slab of smoky smelling wood fell off from beneath the pier. Looking back up, she saw that the fire was swiftly beginning to spread. It wouldn't take long before the whole pier would be burning. Bonnie ran back up towards the promenade yet again, but upon reaching the top, she froze and gasped.

Walkers. Dozens of them were coming out of the woods from the opposite end of the promenade and closing in on the pier. Bonnie drew her pistol and shot three who'd been too close to her to begin with, and then took a moment to confirm that most of the horde of undead were, indeed, cutting off the escape of the bandits still left on the burning pier. Just then, through all the walkers, much further down the promenade, she saw a fleeing figure limping away towards the collection buildings further down. The only person she knew who limped like that when he ran was none other than Dory.

Bonnie shot at another four walkers who'd been coming for her, buying herself another few seconds of worry-free thinking. Then she remembered her friends. Looking back towards the ship, she saw that they were less than a minute now from the promenade. How the hell they'd managed to run for a mile nonstop through sand, she'd never be able to say anything about other than something complimentary. Guess they really did care for her safety, Bonnie surmised with a small smile. She waved at them briefly before turning around and pursuing Dory.

The walkers were tricky to dodge through, but Bonnie managed it. As she sprinted down the promenade, the sounds of gunfire and screams began to fade behind her. When she looked over her shoulder, she saw that the horde had quickly multiplied.

Small, kneeling circles had congregated at several points on the beach, implying that some of the bandits who'd jumped off the pier onto the sand had met their ends by an impenetrable wall of walkers. Quietly, Bonnie prayed her friends would play it smart and avoid that whole area altogether.

Upon nearing the collection of buildings at the end of the promenade, Bonnie could see that it was actually the tip of some small outlet mall that ran further into the woods.

It was only when she'd entered the outlet mall that Bonnie realized a disconcerting fact. All she was carrying with her now was her SIG pistol. She cursed, remembering that she'd most likely left both her sniper rifle and AR-15 back at the fishing supply store. Now that the pier was burning, she'd need a new backpack, as well.

Bonnie peaked around the corner, pistol ready to fire, and studied the dimly lit area. The place was quiet. Abandoned storefronts went on into the darkness, and food court tables lay askew.

"Show yourself!" Bonnie yelled out into the area. "I know you're here! Let's end this! Just you and me!" Silence met her demands. That was when she decided to alter her strategy a bit. "Oh, Theodore!" mocked Bonnie. "Theodore, sweetie! Come out and play, now!"

"It's Dory, you apple-headed fuck!" came a voice behind an old hot dog stand about thirty feet away. "Dory, Dory, motherfucking Dory!"

"Thanks for letting me know where you are, baby!"

A pause. Then, "Shit!" He fired his shotgun at Bonnie's hiding place.

Bonnie cursed. The shot blew a small chunk of stone clean off. Apparently, however, that had been Dory's only shell. Out of spite, he threw his emptied shotgun as far at Bonnie as his strength could muster. It fell flat at nine feet.

Dory emptied half his pistol fruitlessly at Bonnie before deciding to save the last of his ammo. When the silence began to drag on, Dory howled with laughter. "Old friends reunited, am I right?" he called out. "Who would've thought that we'd ever see each other again after all these years — let alone after an apocalypse of the walking dead!" He then laughed, long and shrilly. "Oh, man," he said, catching his breath. "The odds must have been just astro-fucking-nomical!"

Bonnie gritted her teeth. "This ends now, Theodore. You ain't going to hurt nobody, no more. Not after I'm through with you."

"And here comes that surge of déjà vu! Didn't you tell me this once before? You know . . . right after Malcolm?"

Bonnie growled. She'd prepared herself mentally, knowing Dory would bring him up at some point, but the emotions and memories rushed back regardless. "He was just a child," Bonnie said, starting at a whisper. "You sick, fucking . . . he was just a fucking child! How could you —?"

"Oh, please! It's been, what, sixteen years? Come on, Bonnie. You should've gotten over that by now." When he didn't hear Bonnie respond, Dory chuckled. "The whole time . . . he was screaming for you, Bonnie. He was screaming for his big sister to come and save him. And I let him go on, and on, and on. I let the hope hang on his head, all the way till he realized you'd never even known he was gone. The look of mortified epiphany on his face right before the end was just . . . adorable."

_"I'll fucking kill you!"_

Bonnie left the corner and charged for the hot dog stand. Both of them opened fire, but spent their weapons without connecting a single shot. At this point, Dory fled, but Bonnie was much faster and soon caught up. She tackled him to the floor. They wrestled around for a moment until they both freed themselves from the other. Both stood back up, glaring each other down.

Now, Dory wasn't exactly an imposing figure. If anything, he painted the exemplary image of "please feel free to bully me anytime, anywhere." He was at least an inch shorter than Bonnie, and just as skinny, too. What made him difficult to overpower, however, was the fact that Dory was some sort of martial arts expert. Bonnie had no idea of what form, or forms, but it involved a lot of maneuvers that didn't put much strain on his limp, therefore allowing him to be highly effective in hand to hand combat, despite his slight handicap.

Bonnie threw a right hook at Dory's jaw that he dodged by half an inch. He countered immediately by driving a fist into her right rib cage, causing her to lean rightwards in reactionary pain. This led to a hand gripping the underside of her chin, another resting at the small of her back, and then finally being finished with a standing leg sweep that knocked Bonnie off her footing. The hand on her chin pushed subsequently, increasing the force of her impact. Luckily, Bonnie locked her left arm behind her head at the last second to cushion her skull when it hit the pavement. Yeah, she got a bit woozy, but she'd recover.

Dory was on her in an instant. He straddled her at the waist and began a barrage of alternating left and right punches directed at Bonnie's face. Shielding herself with her arms only allowed her to block about half of the blows. Bonnie was in pain, but then realized that she could retaliate at a defenseless Dory. She suddenly threw a fist upwards, connecting with Dory's nose. It didn't do too much damage, but it had its intended effect: Dory wincing his head upwards out of pure reflex in an attempt to avoid the attack, leaving his Adam's apple momentarily open for a fingertip stab with Bonnie's left hand which stunned Dory long enough for Bonnie to turn him over.

Instead of mimicking Dory's punching barrage, Bonnie kneed him in the groin and then flipped him onto his belly. From there, she proceeded to perform a WWF move she'd often seen on TV as a kid: the Sharpshooter. She gripped both of Dory's shins under her right arm, and then stuck her right leg in-between both of his. From there, she sat down hard on his back and pulled, practically preparing to snap him in half like a twig.

Dory cried out in pain, and actually patted the ground in surrender out of instinct, but Bonnie only increased the pressure she was applying. Unfortunately for Bonnie, she leaned back just a little too much, allowing Dory to reach up above him to scratch at Bonnie's eyes and face. He was freed and shot back up to his feet, holding his back and side in pain.

Bonnie growled in frustration. She almost had him. Once again, she charged at him, but Dory was ready that time. Just as Bonnie connected, Dory spun to his side, dropped to a knee, and then threw Bonnie over his shoulder. From there, he locked her in a chokehold. It didn't last long, however, as Bonnie kicked off from a nearby wall to loosen his grip on her, allowing her to eventually wriggle free.

Dory attempted to make the next move, but Bonnie surprised him with something a little more unexpected: she jumped straight up and dropkicked the shit out of his jaw. Dory toppled backwards and then landed in the wishing fountain. To both their surprise, there was a splash. That things still had water; filthy and infected as hell, but still full, nonetheless.

Dory was in the midst of rising back up to his feet when he felt a sudden weight holding him down. Bonnie straddled him at the belly and began strangling him with both hands. She used all her might to keep his whole head beneath the water, all as Dory scratched and clawed at her arms and chest.

Dory struggled like a man possessed, summoning unnatural strength to counter this attempt on his life, but it just wasn't enough to overpower a vengeful ex-sibling. He was losing breath, and fast. Right as he got the idea of throwing punches into the back of her elbows to loosen her grip on him, the wind was knocked clear out of him. Bonnie freed one hand just long enough to deliver a heavy punch straight into the upper half of his gut.

That was what sealed his fate. Whatever breath Dory had held in reserve had been forced out. Dory could only succumb to his body's biological functions: he inhaled for air that was not there. He took in two lungfuls of stagnant water before his arms and legs twitched to a standstill.

Bonnie punched him in the gut again, just to make certain. And again. And then three more times. Not once did she allow his head to rise from the water. When she was sure he was dead, she climbed out of the fountain and began to return to the promenade. Halfway back, she turned around to find that some walkers had already converged on the fountain, and were now tearing up Dory's corpse with satisfying ferocity.

"That was for Malcolm, you son of a bitch."

Once back on the promenade, Bonnie sat down on the pavement for a few silent minutes, simply processing all that had happened. Before long, she heard the shouts of familiar voices. Through the trees came beams of many lights, and soon, out emerged Vince. He took one look at Bonnie and grinned in relief.

"She's over here!" he called back into the woods. At that, the other flashlights centered on their direction.

When the group cleared the trees and showed themselves clearly, Bonnie smiled. Everybody was there, nice and safe. Looks like they'd avoided the pier altogether like she'd hoped, and just went around through the woods.

Shel ran over to Bonnie, got on her knees, and then locked her in a tight embrace, to which Bonnie returned wholeheartedly. "Are you okay?" asked Shel. "We saw all the bodies before we went around. You must have been surrounded by an entire army, or something."

"More like twenty," Bonnie said. "The walkers and fire took out most of them, actually."

Mike came up beside them. "Why'd you go and run off over here instead of towards us?" he asked.

"Dory," Bonnie just said. "If you're curious about how that turned out, that's him over there. Or what's left of him, at least."

The whole group turned to see the gang of walkers feasting on the former bandit leader. Shel was the first to break from the trance. She stood from her seat beside Bonnie and looked at everybody. "Come on," she said. "Let's go home."

* * *

**Author's Closing Word**

Whether you happened to like my work, or not, I'd like to thank you for giving this a read. I'm glad I was actually able to finish a writing I started, for once.

"So, now that this is done, where do I go from here?" you might be asking yourself, but probably aren't. If I may, my suggestion is for you to check out another _400 Days_ fan fiction I have followed myself for the last couple months. It's a really detailed (both on this site, and through its author's 3DS Max artwork on Tumblr), and (most importantly) long series on here by user "Thunderslate" called _Into the Fray._ It's over something like a cumulative total of 300,000 words long across three different seasons. However, the sucky thing is that, while it had been an ongoing series, it's now on the last few chapters of its final season as of this writing. Still, I highly recommend that you check it out, especially if you're still a-hankerin' for more _400 Days_ fan fiction. Hell, that very same a-hankerin' was the only reason I wrote these short stories in the first place.

Probably should also mention really quick that I originally intended to add a rather graphic Shel x Vince lemon chapter (_AU 3-2: Lovers Lost High within Shadow_). It would've taken place after _Account of the Bonnie Unstoppable,_ but, unfortunately, it also would've just gotten this entire fic deleted along with it due to its porn-y nature. If I ever get around to finishing it, I may upload it to some other website, and then post an announcement chapter here with an indirect link to it.

Finally, to any of my older subscribers who both might be reading this, and might still be waiting for me to complete _Final Fantasy VII: Beyond Paradise 2_ — please don't fret. I have no intention of giving up on either concluding it, or overhauling it. Just ignore BP2 for a while, and before you know it, you'll stumble across that "New chapter from cleon24769" update in your inbox one day. I'll finish it all in one go, too; ending included.


End file.
